[jennie7439]

My name is Jennie and this is my first attempt at posting so I hope it works. I am writing to offer a voice of experience and a bit of warning / advice to anyone who is adopting or thinking about it. I am not writing to discourage adoption. I think it can be a wonderful way to build a family. I just don't want anyone to have to go through what we did. And here is what happened: We decided to adopt from Haiti. We found an agency in Montana, [EDITED], that had a Haiti program. We began the process and got a referral fairly quickly. We have two boys and wanted a little girl. We were referred a girl age 4. We knew that she had a sister but were assured that the two were not close and so we accepted the referral. In June of 2004 we brought Daniella home. She was a wonderful child, intelligent, sensitive, and sociable. She was also very sad. She missed her sister horribly and would look at the two pictures we had of her and cry. It seemed there was no consoling her. We didn't worry about this in the beginning. We waited and tried to help her adjust. After a few months we started to wonder but I had read that the whole first year can be a time of adjustment so we continued as best we could. By the end of the first year, when things were no better, we knew that it was not working. She was not happy with us, she wanted to be with her sister and had wanted that since the day that she came. Finally we decided that we owed it to her to at least try to right the wrong that had been done by splitting the girls up. Her sister had already been adopted, at the same time and was happy in her home. Adopting her was not a possibility. In the end, we let our daughter go to this family to be with her sister to be adopted by them. She has been gone for two weeks now. Our boys, Evan, (almost 7), and Levi (4 1/2) don't understand and were very hurt and confused. There is such a void now and we have begun packing up her things that were left here and trying to clean out her room. It's easier not to have to walk past it all day and see her things. The agency did this to our family. We trusted them and we lost everything. We lost our child, the thousands of dollars we paid them, the happiness of our sons, and what feels like a piece of us. After numerous placating and patronizing remarks of hollow offers like 'if there's anything we can do...' Like what? The damage is already done. I wrote back and said, if you really want to help, then give us part of our money back. They can't replace the child. And they can not make her happy without her sister. They were responsible for the referral and for the decision to split the girls up. They were less than two years apart in age. They were raised together by their birth mother and then in the same orphnage for about a year. How could they not be close? They should have known to keep them together. Of course they won't refund a penny of what was paid to them for the services that lead to our family being torn apart. Right now we are dealing with things the best we can and plan to start looking for a soft hearted attorney somewhere in the state of Montana. (Lots of luck finding a soft-hearted attorney) But probably we will never be able to take any action against them for anything and they may go on doing this to other unsuspecting families. So that is my story and am just hoping that somebody can avoid a similar situation. Please do not believe anyone who says that splitting up siblings will be just fine. It often isn't. Find a decent agency and check them as thoroughly as you possibly can. Get everything they tell you in writing. Everything. If they don't want to write it down, why not? It might really help to find an agency in your state so if there are problems later you will have some ability to take action of some kind against them, whether that is court, or Better Business Bureau, or some licensing authority, whatever, it is difficult to get anywhere from a different state. We do not live in Montana and have found this out the hard way. Please be careful. Jennie

[timhea]

Thanks for sharing your story. It's so heartbreaking to think that you were trying so hard to make a life for this child and ended up screwed.

[Poolside]

oh Jennie : what a sad story. Thank you for giving guidence to others at such a difficult time. I think you must be one of the most amazing people in the world to recognize that your daughter was lonely for her sister, and try make her hurt go away. That's what a mom does. You did an amazing thing putting them back together. (hugs)

[alphamom9]

who loved the child enough to let her go..you have my respect--but know you'd rather have your girl. This almost happened to us--I adopted from Haiti as well-if I hadn't asked for a boy belatedly would have split up a pair that would scream endlessly if separated for months after they arrived.To be fair though I think some of it is that they don;t want to ruin one child's chances if the AP would feel guilty if they couldn't take both and then turn down the original

[jennie7439]

I am glad to see that people are at least reading this. I see that my post has been edited. Figures. We get screwed and we can't even dare say the name of the people that did it. Oh well, there are very few agencies that work in Haiti and probably only one in Montana. If there is more than one, there won't be two in Twin Bridges Montana. I wonder, does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this?

[BrandyHagz]

Jennie,

I realize you are new – so I understand your confusion about the rules surrounding agency discussions – but understand that NO comments, good or bad, can be discussed on this forum. This is a support forum, and due to the large number of self serving agencies that either come here to bash others or promote theirs, we’ve had to prohibit the discussion of agencies on the forums all together.

You might want to take a few minutes to become familiar with:

The Agency Discussion Guideline http://forums.adoption.com/announcement.php?f=45

The Forum Rules AdoptionForums.com Forum rules

The Terms of Service http://www.adoption.com/community.php

[AdrienneG]

I am sorry for your loss. It is a real loss....people may not realize this because its not exactly a part of our social fabric of society that people who wish to adopt can "lose" a child.

You have a BIG heart to help this child find her sibling....and to have had the compassion to realize she was grieving deeply for this sibling.


I dont know what I can say to take away the pain of this, but know that that was the most giving thing you could have done with how much you wanted to raise that child.